Here is the plan!
Okay, so I have a big, wild dream!
With the project BORDERS, I want to explore how man-made national borders affect people's lives.
MY VISION
At a time when we are grappling with questions of identity, migration and national borders, I want to investigate how these abstract lines shape people's lives. My focus is not necessarily on the political debate, but rather on human experiences.
These borders were originally created to define territories of power and legislation. They are human-made constructs. Some follow rivers or mountains, while others came into being through wars or negotiations. And sometimes they have literally been drawn on a map using a ruler.
But borders are more than just agreements or lines on a map. They become part of culture and identity. They influence how people feel about a place, how they relate to their history and how they relate to one another.
WHY THIS MATTERS
This tension is the starting point for my project. I find these borders incredibly strange. I cross them without a second thought; the only thing I notice is a notification from my mobile provider: "Welcome to Germany." Yet there are also border controls along the Dutch-German border.
How does a political agreement become a personal reality? How does a national border embed itself in a landscape, a family history or a sense of freedom?
During exhibitions, I noticed that visitors spent a long time looking at my work Territorial Pissing and began sharing personal stories about borders. These conversations made it clear that the work touched on a social sensitivity that extended beyond the context in which it was originally presented. These encounters made me realise that this research deserves to be explored in greater depth and expanded further.
I want to hear and visualise the stories of people who come up against these borders. Or perhaps people who don't experience a border at all.
I am interested in the tension between openness and demarcation. This tension is not only socially relevant, but also offers a rich visual starting point. A border exists, yet it is often invisible. It is therefore both tangible and imaginary at the same time.
By translating personal experiences into independent visual artworks, I want to make visible how man-made borders continue to shape our inner landscapes, even when they barely exist physically anymore.
WHY ME
This project fits perfectly within my artistic practice. I am constantly exploring the value of science and the value of imagination. An ode to not knowing.
In my practice, I often work with silhouettes. They are simultaneously present and absent. Or perhaps somewhere in between. I also work extensively with cyanotype and stop-motion animation, as these techniques lend themselves particularly well to working with silhouettes. They allow me to make transformations within a border zone visible.
These are also relatively old techniques, and I find the contrast with the fast-paced world we live in today particularly compelling. Let's slow down for a moment, to look and listen, and reflect on what we are actually doing.
HOW
For this project, I want to have conversations with people who live or have lived in border regions. People who have emigrated, people who have fallen in love across a border, and people who are not allowed to cross one.
I am looking for personal experiences and memories. How do you experience a border? When have you come up against one? What does it feel like to be on one side or the other?
I don't intend to use these stories to create a participatory artwork. They will not be translated directly into images; instead, the collected stories will inform and inspire the development of my independent visual art practice.
OUTCOME
I believe this project will be an important step in the development of my artistic practice. It offers me the opportunity to connect my fascination with the balance between knowledge and imagination to a socially relevant theme.
The project will result in a new series of stop-motion animations, which can be projected onto the interiors and exteriors of buildings, as well as an artist's publication combining my images with a selection of the collected stories.
IMPACT
With BORDERS, I want to deepen the conceptual foundations of my practice by connecting research with art.
This publication will not be a documentation of the research, but rather an artist's book in which images and text complement and challenge one another. It will bring together a selection of the collected stories with visual material from the artistic process and the final artworks. The book will function as an independent artistic publication, further exploring the tension between personal experience, memory, landscape and identity.
With BORDERS, I want to reach an audience interested in contemporary visual art, social issues, heritage and identity. The project is primarily aimed at festival audiences, people living in border regions, students and school pupils, and those whose personal histories involve national borders, migration or connections that transcend national boundaries.
I don't want to create political answers. I want to make room for imagination and stories, for doubt and complexity, at a time when questions surrounding migration and national borders are so prominent.
And then there's that big, wild dream: I want these works to be projected at festivals, onto border buildings and in embassies!
A project on this scale takes time. I need to invest in hours of work, materials and much more. To make this happen, I am approaching various funding bodies.
But you can help too, by taking out an art subscription as a supporter. Let's take this idea from my PC out into the world! (And by doing so, you'll become part of it too. A small gesture to help change the world, just a little?)
In return, I'll make sure you receive beautiful, original little artworks delivered to your home every quarter.
Thank you!
Jasmijn
